Quote:
Originally Posted by Hermes_pan
1. Portability: Ideally fits in pocket
|
It is slightly smaller and lighter than the PW2. 175g, 163x107x8 mm
I should add that it has the same screen as the PW2 : E-Ink Carta, 1024x758 px, 212 dpi, and front-lighting. The light is not as smooth as on the PW2, more like the Glo. I haven't seen any annoying blotches
Quote:
|
2. Large selection of compatible titles: Practically, this means can read Amazon books
|
I guess that will be your main problem. There's a store affiliated with PocketBook, but the selection is awful. The manual seems to imply you could change to another bookstore, but I'm not quite sure how (yet), or at least get automated delivery of books bought on other sites directly on the device through WiFi (no 3G). Once again, I haven't tried it yet. It can't read Amazon books, because to my knowledge only Amazon devices can without conversion and apprentice "trickery"
. However, it reads ePub, FB2, txt, Djvu, PDF (I've only tried ePub and FB2). I have recently bought some books in ePub format through ebooks.com, which I found through Calibre, and it seemed to me that they have a choice almost as big as Amazon's, and no proprietary format problem (ePubs are ADE-DRM'ed). I buy 99% of my books through Amazon (even when I used mostly the Sonys or Glo) and convert them through Calibre
Quote:
|
3. International: Buy anything anywhere. Not tied to one nation or one credit/debit card. I am Canadian and there is a hassle factor vis-vis Amazon USA. But I spend mist of my time in 3rd world Asia.
|
Ebooks.com is australian, I had no trouble buying with my french credit card (there was even an option to buy in Euro). However, once more, this is based on a small experience. Amazon will have you tied to the country in which your card is issued, or, in the case on Amazon Japan, to your home address (I've bought books on Amazon Japan in France with a french card, but I had to use a former address in Japan, and de-register/re-register my PW as the books could only be sent to my Kindle, not downloaded on my computer. Quite a hassle !)
Quote:
|
4. Simple to use: Like a Mac in 1985
|
I found the interface to be rather self-explanatory. It seems it's new, and PocketBooks were more confusing before. Books can be searched by Title, Author, Date added, Series, user-made shelves, etc...
Quote:
5. Can highlight and make notes: Ideally *save* them too not tied to a proprietary device/system. In the past Calibre software could not do this.
Very useful
|
You can certainly highlight and make notes, also share quotations and the like (though from you post I guess it is not, by far, your main concern). I don't know about exporting them
Quote:
|
6. Clean design: Not a lot of buttons. I want to read books not type a novel.
|
Well.. it has *quite* a lot of buttons, which is one of the reasons I bought it :
- Four front buttons (Main screen, 2 page turning buttons, one Menus button)
- Two Page-Turning (!) side-buttons
- an on/off switch
However, it also has a touch-screen, so you could completely forgo the buttons. All buttons can be customized to their own function, the touchscreen can't (meaning fixed, pre-established zones for page-forward, page-backward, etc...)
I bought the reader mainly because it had a latest-generation screen, front-lighting and page-turn buttons.
Quote:
|
7. Text to speech: Can listen to books
|
Yes ! In many languages, with voice packs downloadable from the Obbrey website. I haven't tried it, though. It's IVONA, I think it's supposed to be good
Quote:
|
8. Durable: Shock, rain, dust
|
No idea, 4 days is too early to tell
Quote:
|
9. No computer needed: Stand alone device
|
I'm afraid not, unless you go with Amazon, and only dowload books through WiFi. That said, you can download books on the PocketBook directly from Dropbox (there's a special app on the reader, I haven't tried it yet), so technically you could set up your book collection on Dropbox at home, then go on a trip and download books from it through Wifi. For buying books, see above
I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I don't know, for example, if you can
borrow library books with it
Extra (dreaming)
Quote:
|
10. Good value: features vs. price
|
Rather expensive, I'm afraid
170€
But it has quite a lot of features...
Quote:
|
11. Gift cards available: For anonymity of book purchase history
|
No idea. I guess it depends more on the bookstore you use.
Yes ! And any audio you throw at it, there's an mp3 player with headphone plug. Not tested yet, though
Quote:
|
13. Can read all popular format companies and sources: public library, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
|
As I said, it can read ePub, FB2, PDF, DJVU, Txt. So, even though I don't know about the borrowing process, I guess it *could* read library books. Only Kindles read Amazon format natively, only Nooks read B&N format natively
Quote:
|
14. Can read/hear foreign language books in English: Not wonky Bing translator, I mean buying a Russian or Chinese book and being able to read/hear it in English.
|
You mean audio on-the-fly translation ? I don't think *any* device can do that. There are extensive TTS packs, and the device comes with 20 dictionaries (ABBY dictionary). I was a bit disappointed to see that it did not come with a standard russian dictionary, considering where Obbrey is from, but there's a good one that can be bought for less than 5 euros. There's also a chinese/russian dictionary. No japanese, unfortunately. The reader interface can be set in many different languages, including russian, chinese, arabic, so I guess it could display many different books. I haven't had problems with the japanese books, except that they are displayed in "western" format (horizontally, left-to-right, not vertically, right-to-left)
Quote:
|
15. Memory card slot: Not so much for number of books, but I like the James Bond feature of deleting titles when I cross borders into Big Brother lands).
|
Yes ! Micro-SD, up to 32 Gb. Also useful for storing music and audiobooks
I should add that there's one main feature of the reader, the one it's mainly sold for, and which explains the hefty price-tag, that I haven't tried yet. It comes with a 5-MPixel camera ! Of course the screen is black-and-white Eink, but you can still take pictures for your screensavers, or picture of text. That's what it's mainly advertised for, and they say it can be used to "scan" text and make your own document. Supposedly, there's even OCR, but I have no idea whether it's good or not. You can afterward export to PDF or text (or so they say).
There are also a couple of games (Chess, Klondike Solitaire, Sudoku), and a web-browser.
On the whole, I'm rather happy with it. I have one main gripe, but that's because I like things
perfect : in sleep-screen mode, book covers do not show in full-screen. That's the one thing I really miss from paper books, having nice book covers. The Sony T3 does that, but doesn't have light, the PW2 does that but only after jailbreaking and tinkering, and is only 2Gb, no audio, no page-turn buttons. I think I'll learn to live with the small-ish cover !
I bought mine online through the PocketBook/Obbrey website, but they can also be found in some stores in France. I don't know about availability in other countries. Also, it was on pre-order in June, for the end of July. I bought mine last week, but on the french site it seems availability is now at the end of August !